Be Ready For Your Act
by xBadxRomancesx
Summary: Thirteen ghosts. Only ten were captured. Join Shaggy, Daphne, and Scooby on their journy to find the remaining three, and maybe something else...
1. Epilouge

**Note: I do not own Scooby-Doo. **

_Black. _

_Shaggy had on a clean, black suit. Not his usual attire for a Saturday morning. Not his usual attire at all, in fact. All of Daphne's usual outfits were hung up nicely in the closet she shared with Shaggy, the outfit she had on was a long, black dress, handbag, and pumps. Vincent had on no colorful robes, but a black suit almost identical to his young friend Shaggy's suit. Even Scrappy and his Uncle Scooby-Doo switched their old, blue collars for black ones that had been purchased for them. And the silent, little group stood in a straight line. In their dark attire. In front of a black coffin. Under a sky filled with black clouds._

_"Flim Flam, you will be missed here on earth. We ask you to watch over your loved ones as they continue to do good, and that you rest peacefully. Amen." A priest said_ in a somber tone.

_"Amen." They repeated. As the funeral home assistants began to cover Flim Flam's coffin with dirt, Shaggy noticed that Daphne was no longer standing next to him. He turned around and noticed her figure walking further away from the gravesite. She was about ten yards away. He ran walked over to her, his footsteps making no sound on the soft, morning grass._

_"Daph! Wait!" She stopped walking. "You okay Daph?" _

_Daphne hugged her arms to her chest, back turned to Shaggy and tears running down her cheeks. "It don't think I can take any more of this Shaggy." Daphne said. Shaggy wrapped his arms around his girlfriends thin frame and pulled her into a hug. Daphne didn't object._

_"I know. It's like, hard on everyone." Shaggy comforted her softly._

_"This isn't right, it's not fair." _

_"I know. Slippin' on a rug while being like, chased by-"_

_"I was there." Daphne interrupted him. She broke away, leaving a large, cold space between the two. _

_"And I can't imagine how much it like, has haunted you." Shaggy sympathized. "But there was like, nothing you could have done."_

_"I know, I know that. I've heard it from you. I've heard it from Vincent. I've heard it from the doctors. I've heard it from the cops. I've heard it from my therapist. But I've played that day over, and over, and over in my head, and I'm still not convinced that there wasn't something I could have done, to keep Flim Flam out of the pine box!" Daphne half-shouted._

_Shaggy stayed silent. he thought up hundreds of things to say, but none sounded comforting enough. Daphne had barely eaten, barely slept, barely spoke a word to anyone aside from the therapist she saw four times a week since the incident over two weeks before._

_"My therapist told me something else." Daphne stared down at her shoes for a moment, before looking back up at her partner. "I should give up solving mysteries."_

_"No. We _need _you Daphne!" _

_"And I need my sanity." The female argued._

_"But our strong Daph. We can help each other get through this-"_

_"Shaggy, I _can't_ do this anymore I can't chase ghosts, and demons, and go through life-threatening situations every time I turn around."_

_"I won't let anything touch you Daph."_

_"Please stop calling me that." She begged._

_"But I love you." The red-head sighed. "And I know you love me."_

_"And that's why I can't watch you risk your life anymore. I-I-I can't wonder if I'm going to loose you anymore." Daphne stuttered._

_"Then why are you making me go through loosing you?" Shaggy snapped. "I'm sorry. I didn't like, mean to snap."_

_"It's fine." Daphne said softly."I'm sorry I'm such a coward Shaggy..." She breathed shakily._

_"It's not your fault Daphne. It's mine for opening that darn chest." Shaggy cursed himself. "So like, what's your plan?" _

_"I'm going to pack up my things. Move into an apartment somewhere quiet. Get a job at a-"_

_"But Daphne, you can't leave us!" Scrappy cried out. He and his Uncle Scooby-Doo had walked over when they heard Daphne and Shaggy arguing. Scooby and Scrappy-Doo looked at Daphne, hurt. _

_"Scrappy. You may not be old enough to understand this, but, I can only be strong up too a point. And I've passed that point." Daphne explained slowly. _

_"But we still have three ghost's left!" The puppy objected. _

_"And I know that you'll splat 'em Scrappy. But, I can't be with you when you do it." _

_"Raphne..." Scooby whimpered._

_"I'll really miss you Scooby." Daphne crouched down and stroked the dog's muscular head. "But remember, you _are _brave Scooby. You help the people you care about even if your afraid. And that's what matters." _

_Scooby sniffled and nuzzled up to his friend's torso. Daphne hugged him tightly. When they pulled away, Daphne somehow managed to smile at the Great Dane in encouragement. _

_"Can we at least help you pack?" Shaggy asked. His heart breaking into a trillion tiny pieces._

_"No. Let's just say our final good-byes here and now." Daphne didn't want to say good-bye. And not today. But she knew she had too. And before she changed her mind._

_"Good bye Daphne. Keep in touch okay?" Daphne scooped Scrappy up in her arms and kissed his snout._

_"Your on the top of my Christmas card list." Daphne assured him. _

_"Rye-rye Raphne." Scooby sniffled. Not understanding why someone he shared a home with, and considered family could just chose to leave in an instant._

_"Forgive me?" Daphne asked._

_"Reah." He pulled Daphne into a final hug and licked her face, making Daphne giggle slightly. _

_"Like, don't say good-bye." Shaggy begged her. "Say, see you soon. Please?"_

_""How 'bout fare well?" Daphne stood up straight and held out her hand for her now-former boyfriend to shake. "I do remember the good times Shag."_

_"Like, remember, you can always like, come back." Shaggy said pulling her into a hug. Trying to fool himself into thinking it wouldn't be the last he'd share with her._

_"I know." Daphne smiled and kissed her lover in the cheek. "Tell Vincent I'll miss him too. 'Kay?" _

_"Will do. Daphne." Shaggy tried smiling back. But no. His mouth stayed sill in a sad frown. _

_Daphne blinked and waved. The Doo's watched her walk up to the graveyard gate, open gate, call for a taxi, step in, and disappear behind the first left turn. Shaggy couldn't watch. He walked in the direction toward the nearest restaurant. Scooby noticed this and rushed after him, Scrappy following._

_"We had to let her go Scoob." Shaggy said hanging his head. Scooby whimpered and nuzzled his best friends hand._

_And then the black clouds started to pour._


	2. Changes

**Note: I do not own Scooby-Doo. That pleasure belongs to H-B.**

**Authors note: THIS DOES NOT FOLLOW THE "MYSTERY INC." SERIES OR ANY WARNER BROTHERS TIMELINE. SHAGGY AND DAPHNE ARE ADULTS IN 13 GHOST SCOOBY-DOO AND THIS FANFICTION. NOT TENNAGERS LIKE "MYSTERY INC." SUGGESTED. **

* * *

><p><em>About one year later. Date: June 9th 1987<em>

_"And we're back to the Six O' clock shake with Daphne Blake!" _A masculine voice boomed through the stage room. Daphne was sitting in a chair shaped like an arcade video game machine. There was an identical chair about a yard away from her, but had a different design. And a small, plain table inbetween the two chairs. Daphne had on a stylish purple blouse, black jeans, light-brown open-toed sandals, and a loose green belt on with a tiny amount of make-up. Her thick red hair fell freely over her shoulders. She smiled into the camera sweetly.

"Welcome back! Today, we've been chatting about video games." Daphne reminded the audience. "And in the last segment, I chatted with one of the CEO's of the Niitechno gaming company. And he was nice enough too give me some games to try out on their new Gaming platform! Like, Horsey Kong, Tac-Kid, and Super Marina Second-Cousins once removed!" Daphne held up the games in there cases for the camera to see. "And, he supplied us with enough for everybody in the audience!"

The audience cheered and clapped loudly. Forgetting that the games were compleatly useless unless they bought the gaming platforms themselves._  
><em>  
>"And now, before we wrap this thing up, let's answer some of the letters I've recieved from the show's fans." Daphne crossed her legs and waited patiently for one of the executive producers to bring her a stack of letter to open.<p>

"Thanks Tony!" She said as a tall, olive-skined female stepped onto the stage, shielding her face from the camera. The camera-shy executive producer quickly ran off the stage and into the safety of her office backstage.

Daphne pulled a envelope out of the stack at random. The envelope was a lavender shade, and had a light scent to it. Daphne smiled, the aroma was actually...Soothing. She looked down and was about to cut into it with her gold-painted letter-opener, when something startled her. The 'a'. The 'a' had a curl underneath it. She knew someone that curled an 'a' like that. And Daphne was almost sure what that person was writing to her about.

"Daphne." Mikey Harris, one of the producers on the show whispered her name harshly. Daphne snapped her head up. Feeling embarrassed, she came up with a quick excuse.

"Umm, that's an electricity bill. How'd that get in there?" Daphne giggled and stuffed the letter in one of the back pockets of her jeans. She pulled another letter out of the pile and opened it swiftly. She read it outloud.

"Dear Daphne. Love the show. And I'm dying to know, where do you get your shoes? Love, Madonna."

The rest of the show went on without a hitch, like always. She answered her letters, announced the details of their monthly contest, singed off, and the audience went home. Daphne gathered her things from backstage and contacted her driver to bring the car around back.

"Hey Daphne! You okay? Ya just zoned out back there." Tony asked her.

"I'm fine." Daphne said cheerfully. She added a cutesy laugh at the end of her sentence to sound more convincing.

"Okay." Tony rolled her eyes at her. Still suspicious, but she knew Daphne kept her personal life separate from her professional life. "But ya know ya can tell me right? We're friends right?"

"Of course Tony. And you know, you should show your gorgeous face more." Daphne nudged her playfully. Her driver honked to let her know that he was waiting. "See you around Tony."

"Bye Blake." Tony waved.

Daphne was accompanied by two bodyguards to her dark green ZTD Leopard. Daphne smiled and blew a few kisses at the photographers and fans. One of her body guards opened the door for her, and she thanked him and stepped in.

"Where to Miss Blake?" Her dark skinned driver asked with his heavy Southern accent.

"Home Oliver." Daphne said relaxing into the plushy, purple seats. Her driver nodded and carefully drove out of the parking lot. It seemed to take hours for Oliver to slide through traffic to get to her apartment building. But soon enough he pulled in front of the tall building. She thanked him and got out of the car. She waited until she was in privacy of a her penthouse apartment, removed her shoes, and got comfortable on her retro style leather couch to take the letter out of her purse. A simple sheet of white paper folded into thirds sat inside the lavender envelope. The letter was hand-written with a sharp, clean handwriting. Daphne read the note out loud in a mumble:

_"Daphne, Daphne you left the job undone._  
><em>The ghosts hid for awhile, but now they want to play.<em>  
><em>I know you think chasing ghosts is no fun,<em>  
><em>But the gang needs you to come back, and for you to stay."<em>

Daphne read it again to make sure. She flipped the note over to find a date, time, and location.

"June thirteenth. Sacramento local airport, Sacramento California. six-thirty." Daphne read it out loud several times so she could memorize it. She looked in the envelope again and discovered a one-way plane ticket from San Francisco to Sacramento.

"Oh my gosh." Daphne breathed. She looked at the calendar. The thirteenth was four days away. Not much time to think about putting her increasingly successful career, and overcoming tragic memories to rejoin her ex-boyfriend, his dog, his dogs nephew, and a Warlock to track down spooky ghosts and monsters and return them to an object titled "The chest of Demons".

Daphne wasn't quite swayed to choose that decision. But, she did feel a twinge of guilt and responsibility tug at her heart. The young talk show star decided it would not be wise to make a rash decision on the first night.

Satisfied with that, Daphne circled the date on her calendar with a red pen, left the letter on her coffee stand, and prepared her after-work shower. After her shower, Daphne settled into a pair of shorts and a casual top. She flipped on her TV set, hoping for some distraction. But the scent from the envelope that laid on her coffee table filled her nose, reminding her that it was still there, as was her very challenging choice.

* * *

><p><strong>I know, I know, that poem and the title of Daphne's show sucked. And I also know that Nintendo didn't come out until later, but that was a parody of Nintendo and their games, so it works! *it doesn't*. I also parodied a popular car from the magical world of the 80's, I'm just a riot aren't I?<strong>

**Also, you may be wondering "Wheres Fred if Daphne is doing a talk show eh?"You'll find out where the rest of the gang is soon enough ;)**

**Thanks too: RomanianPrincess for reviewing and adding this to alerts, S/V Freak and Brunswickers United for reviewing, and dillondelp10 for reviewing, adding this story and me to favs and alerts!**


	3. Standing On Her Own Two Feet

The next morning, Daphne found herself in bed. She didn't remember how she got from the couch to there, but quickly forgot when she looked at her clock and realized she had overslept. She peeled off her pajamas and slipped on a sleeveless purple sundress and some simple flats. She quickly brushed her hair, and left her apartment. Her neighbor Ms. Scarlett Newton-a friendly and bold woman in her early thirties who wrote for a fashion magazine when she wasn't being a smoke machine outside- accompanied her to the elevator.

"Good morning Daphne, how's work?" She asked cheerfully.

Daphne had gotten so tired of answering the question after fifteen or so times. Ratings were good. Some weeks higher some weeks lower, she was the voice of pop culture in San Francisco. There was a lot to love, but not a lot to talk about off-set.

"Great, How about you Scarlett?" Daphne replied. Ms. Scarlett Newton's job seemed to be the complete opposite of Daphne's. She had a new story about outfits worn by celebrities, things that happened during the design process, and chaotic events that happened before, after, and even during photo shoots. Scarlett could talk about her work, because her speech weren't featured in the magazine. When Daphne tried to talk about work she gave the whole episode away.

"Oh, surprisingly quiet these days. I guess everyone is in such a happy mood and only dressing decent this season." She sighed.

"Oh I'm sure heat exhaustion will cloud someone's wardrobe judgment soon."

"Ah, if only I was as perky as you. I could be there talking on the red carpet instead of Joan Rivers I swear to you!" Scarlett Newton always seemed to have some sort of rivalry with Joan Rivers, in spite of never even meeting the woman. Daphne smirked but didn't reply, the elevator stopped shortly afterward and the neighbors parted ways, Ms. Newton promising to have Daphne over for an evening cocktail and 'taffeta tales' as she fondly named her gatherings.

Daphne found her driver waiting for her, she greeted him kindly and climbed into the back.

"Work, or would you like to pick up some breakfast?" He always suggested that, thinking his employer was to skinny and needed a second breakfast-or in this case, a first.

"To the studio please." Daphne responded. Oliver obeyed and pulled out of the driveway, making sure to drive extra close to billboards or signs of food this morning. Once she reached her destination Daphne's bodyguards helped her inside while some paparazzo tried to get a bad shot of her.

"Tony, please tell me you have psychic powers and knew I was going to be late and made French toast?" The red-head greeted her producer walking into her office.

"I got a better idea, why don't we go to the Fruit Stand? We could get an outside booth. And look at every ones shoes." Her producer-turned-friend tempted her. Daphne argued that their boss wouldn't approve taking a break so close to the start of the day, but Tony had developed excellent persuasion skills and got the hungry TV host to half-heartedly agree. Daphne followed her out to her black convertible, enjoying the drive with the top down.

The Fruit Stand was a restaurant dedicated to healthy eating, a couple opened it after reading that if you ate more fruits and veggies, the more you craved them and the healthier you ate. So the fruit stand had every thing to do with fruit from blueberry muffins to Apple BBQ tofu. The owners were also vegetarians, Daphne liked a good, hearty plate of bacon too much to trade diets. But her best friend had and on occasion tried to coax less carcass in Daphne's palate.

The owners recognized her from when she advertised their restaurant by being photographed in a T-shirt with the restaurants name on it. They told her she could have anything she wanted half off. She ordered a double order of raspberry pancakes and a peach parfait with a coke. Tony ordered the special; three banana muffins, hash browns, and freshly-made strawberry-kiwi juice. Daphne played with the edge of the polka-dot table cloth. Tony narrowed her green eyes at her.

"Quit chattin' my ear off Blake." She said sarcastically.

Daphne looked up from the table cloth. "Hmm? Oh' sorry Tone, my mind is just other places..."

"Boyfriend troubles?"

"You would be the first one to know if I had a boyfriend in the first place."

"Girlfriend troubles?"

"Tony!"

"'Ey, my Mom is one of them. I won't judge." Tony leaned back and gave her a joking grin. Daphne rolled her eyes and gave a smile in return. A young blonde waitress brought them their breakfasts.

"Muffin for your thoughts?" Tony picked up one of her banana muffins.

"I don't really know how to say it." Daphne said in-between bites of pancakes.

"Then I'll guess and you just nod or shake your head." Tony suggested. "Does it have to do with the letter you said was a bill on the show yesterday?" Daphne nodded.

"Is the letter from a family member?" Daphne motioned no.

"The law?" Daphne shook her head again.

"A friend then?" Daphne nodded, feeling silly and sure her neck would be sore later.

"Ahh' gettin' somewhere. Is it bad news?"

"Not really." Daphne responded slowly.

"And according to your face it's not good news either." Tony rested her head on her fist. "I'm out of ideas. You'll just have to tell me."

"Well, there are some...loose ends...at my old job." She chose her words carefully and shoved a spoonful of peach parfait in her mouth so she wouldn't have to elaborate.

"Why not just get some duct tape and fix those ends up then?" Tony said casually while unwrapping her second muffin.

"I left my old job in a really difficult situation." Daphne stiffened up, hoping confessing this wouldn't bring back memories she locked away. "I don't want to put myself in the position I abandoned."

"But you got a responsibility." Tony argued. "I know that's an important value to you Blake."

Daphne said nothing more on the subject. Idle comments were occasionally exchanged, that was all. Daphne paid for their breakfasts and rode back to the studio with Tony. She spent the rest of the morning and half the afternoon in her office. It looked like she was mulling over stories in the newspaper and gathering stories to look into, but she was truthfully focusing on Tony's input to her problem.

Her best friend was right. Daphne did hold responsibility in high regard. SHe had hypocritically let herself slip away from a very important responsibility. She was responsible for Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy and Flim-Flam. SHe was responsible for keeping them safe. For keeping them calm and urging them on when demons pushed them to the breaking point. She had been very good at dodging and forgetting about her responsibilities.

She slowly got up from her chair and exited her office. Took the elevator up to the top floor and told the secretary she wanted to see the head of the company. A moment had felt like a week, but she sat across from her boss and said with certainty;

"I need a hiatus."

**Hello there! Anyone remember me? I actually have a good excuse for no updates. My computer wouldn't let me log in here for some reason :/ But now I can and I can update! Scooby-Dooby-Doo!**


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